Cellophane
by rubyshards
Summary: SeiferxSquall, SquallxRinoa. One last fling. For the themes 'bitter' and 'isolation.'


She's dressed up really nice, all pretty silk and beads; she wears that dress like it's a second skin, and it hugs each pale inch of her body like it belongs there, outlining all the important things and hiding away all the blemishes he knows aren't really there. Her hair is done up in a nice little bun atop her head, and wisps of that raven-black hair fall down to dance over her slim shoulders, tickle her perfect neck and perfect collar. She looks like a goddess, chestnut eyes gleaming bright, and her smile so wide on her face that it seems like she can't do anything else with that pretty, rosy mouth of hers. She looks like she belongs.

He can't decide if he wants to hate her or ignore her and pretend. She's all done up in bright red – bright red dress and bright red lipstick – the color makes her too-pale skin seem sheet white under it all, but it looks good on her, and that's all that she cares about, and all that anyone else cares about, too.

He wants to smack her. That smile is starting to drive him crazy as he sits out here, far away, watching through narrowed eyes and over crossed arms. He just wants to wipe that little grin off of her face, and be done with it, because he hates her, almost as much as she hates him.

The lion walks out, and the room quiets down. He tears his eyes away from the pretty little witch in the red dress, and he watches the lion shuffle around, greet the people as he prowls his way through and to the woman in the red dress. His arm snakes around her tiny waist and he pulls her close, and he hates her even more now, hates him even more, and wants to hit them both because of it.

The room explodes in applause when he pulls her into his arms and kisses her, feather soft, on her lips, and they look _perfect_ together.

He's dressed all in black, like there's no other color in him, and his high collar brushes his chin when he tilts his head just right, showing off the curves of pale flesh. Strong legs are draped in loose slacks, shiny black shoes poke out of the bottom, and he gets a good look at the curves of muscle that are bound in that formal, iron-pressed clothing. He looks good, better than the witch does, but it doesn't fit him. Doesn't fit the warrior in him.

They pull away, look around and cling to each other like it's the end of the world, and he's actually smiling, and it's disgusting, and it hurts, all at once.

The Spring Witch and the Lionhearted Knight.

A part of him wants to scream at them, to break them apart from that embrace.

He looks away, turns his eyes elsewhere in the room, and focuses on Quistis off in the corner, hunched over Zell, talking in a hushed voice. He wants to know what they're talking about, but he can't go ask, so he just pretends he can imagine the conversation in his head, just to keep busy. To keep his mind off of the Knight and his Princess spiraling around the room, greeting the guests.

It only takes a matter of time before the little lion spots him out on the balcony. He knows it, without looking over, and he doesn't give him the satisfaction of it. He waits until he can feel the man's body close to his and knows that the witch isn't with him to turn around.

"You came." The lion leans against the balcony at his side, but it's his turn not to look, and his dark eyes are cast of toward elsewhere.

He scoffs.

"You sound surprised."

"I didn't think you would."

Now he's up close, and he can see the lion's features better, can see the golden-brown hair in detail, the longer strands that fall over the curve of his broad shoulders. His face is creased now, wrinkled a little bit in a premature curve at the corners of his eyes, and it's hard to believe that he's really only twenty-three, really only a boy growing into a man. The lion's grown into himself. He wants to reach out and touch the hair and the shoulder close to his side, to trace the creases of skin, but he bites the inside of his mouth and wills himself to wait just a little bit longer.

"I bet you're happy." He tilts his head over his shoulder, props his elbows up on the balcony next to the Knight's, and grins a modest, content smile that doesn't fit him at all. "You got what you wanted."

"You would think so."

The wind feels colder now than what it had before now that the lion has joined him.

"What, she isn't 'everything you could have ever asked for and more?' The little Spring Witch isn't quite what our Lion was looking for after all?" Bitter sarcasm seeps from his words, venom in the wind.

The lion doesn't flinch away - he developed an immunity to the poison long ago.

"You know."

He knows perfectly well. He knows the reason, and he wants the lion to know it, too, if only because it's been eating away at his mind since then.

"I still-"

"I know."

He laughs. It's a forced laugh, inappropriate and placed at the wrong time, at the wrong pause, but it fits him well, fits what he is now just as well as it fits what he used to be: inappropriate. Out of place.

"I'm not coming back after this time. Do you know that, too?" The wind picks up, biting into their bodies and tearing through their clothing, making him suddenly feel so _naked _standing there.

The lion sags a little, droops down under his own weight and the weight of hundreds of students that's been shoved on his shoulders. The lion was made Commander in a night and Headmaster in a year, and he's crushing a little under the pantheon they've erected on his head. He nods.

"I know that, too."

"Do you?"

He pulls away from the balcony and turns to the Knight to face him pointblank this time, lets his jade eyes soak through and dig deep into gray that's lost the blue long ago, and he grins another little smile, a mad little upturn of his lips.

The lion doesn't protest when he grabs golden-brown hair, tugs him close and smashes their lips together one last time, one last fling. Dark eyes fall closed, and he lets the ex-Knight kiss him, slip his tongue into his mouth and taste the ice one last time.

"Good. Then I don't need to explain."

By the time the lion opens his eyes, he's already gone.


End file.
